December 2010

12/28/2010

I wake up craving for my cuppa but have been trying hard to abstain from caffeine as it has harmful effects on my unborn. Yes, now I am having another baby! I have dreams for it, dreams that it will become a great person, useful and contributing to the society. I have been watching my diet more rigorously since another life is growing inside of me.

I gulped my cup of honey, steaming hot this morning. I ate my Mozarella cheese and this is a common breakfast food for my family and took a few green olives stuffed with tomatoes. Biscuits are also not forgotten.

My lunch usually consists of a bowl of salad, a bowl of tomato or lentil soup, some stewed meat and carbo like rice or pasta. I avoid dessert as I might be ingesting unnecessary amounts of fats.

Dinner is more Asian with noodles or rice on the table and fish, tomatoes and green vegetables. I topped it up with glass of Perrier water and a cup of yoghurt.

I keep my health in tip top condition and my diet has always been measured, not excessive and definitely surplus oil is abstained. Salt as many know causes people to have high blood pressure which in turn leads to many other chronic diseases like kidney disease, heart disease etc. It is only used in very small quantities like a pinch of it. My concentration has been good and I stay focused on many tasks which I undertake. Deadlines are met and I do not feel a sense of defeat at all. I feel good about myself and about my ability to work despite being pregnant.

Hence, I will continue with my current diet and will not let anything stop me from pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

12/01/2010

International travelers may feel tired and forgetful for up to a month after returning to a normal schedule because jet-lag causes long term changes in the brain, a US study said Wednesday.

Similar brain disruptions could be experienced by anyone who works alternating night-day shifts or unusual schedules, said the study which is the first to look at long-term effects of such lifestyle changes on brain anatomy.

"What this says is that, whether you are a flight attendant, medical resident, or rotating shift worker, repeated disruption of circadian rhythms is likely going to have a long-term impact on your cognitive behavior and function," said Lance Kriegsfeld, associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley.

The researchers subjected female hamsters to six-hour changes in schedule -- similar to a New York to Paris flight -- twice a week for four weeks.

As expected, the harried hamsters had trouble learning simple tasks that other, more rested hamsters aced during the four-week period.

But more surprisingly, the learning problems persisted for a month after they settled back into a normal schedule.

Researchers say they were able to track the changes to a drop in neurons in the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain responsible for memory.

"Compared to the hamsters in the control group, the jet-lagged hamsters had only half the number of new neurons in the hippocampus following the month long exposure to jet lag," said the study published in the journal PLOS One.

Researchers used hamsters because they have such precise circadian rhythms, driven by an internal, 24-hour clock that everyone possesses.

"They will produce eggs, or ovulate, every 96 hours to within a window of a few minutes," Kriegsfeld said.

Graduate student Erin Gibson pointed out that other studies have shown that people who experience regular jet-lag display memory loss and learning problems, "along with atrophy in the brain's temporal lobe, suggesting a possible hippocampal deficit.

The finding could have wider implications for shift workers and frequent long-distance travelers, who have already been found to suffer "decreased reaction times, higher incidences of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and cancer, and reduced fertility," the study said.

To ward off the effects, Kriegsfeld advises allowing one day of recovery for every one-hour time zone shift. Night shift workers should sleep in a dark, quiet room to adjust their bodies to their altered schedule.